David Drake - Mistress of the Catacombs

Having said that, the dozen or so heads of the civil and military departments were all aristocrats. In Barca’s Hamlet, casual dress meant an undertunic alone—worn without a sash on a summer day like this. Here the civilian councillors wore court robes of silk brocade with a sash, while their military colleagues replaced the sash with a sword belt bearing an empty scabbard. The Blood Eagles didn’t allow anyone but themselves to enter Garric’s presence armed, and the chief of the Blood Eagles—Attaper bor-Atilan—accepted the limitation himself to avoid friction with Lord Waldron, the equally highborn head of the army.

Sharina stifled a wan smile. To avoid worse friction, rather; Waldron, thirty years Attaper’s senior, believed in his heart that he himself should be king. He was at best on stiff terms with Attaper, who didn’t bother to put a diplomatic gloss on his disagreement with that opinion.

“There’s more to this ‘Confederacy of the West’ than hick rulers on Haft, Cordin, and Tisamur deciding they want to secede from the kingdom,” said Chancellor Royhas, seated at Garric’s right hand.

“Begging your pardon sir and lady”—Royhas nodded to Garric and Sharina, a cursory apology for the implied slur against the island of their birth—“but all the force of those islands isn’t enough to delay the royal army any longer than it takes to sail there.”

“They’ve got more force,” said Attaper forcefully. “They’re hiring mercenaries. We knew that even before this latest spy came back with the numbers.”

“They still couldn’t stand against us,” Waldron snapped, though it didn’t seem to Sharina that Attaper had suggested otherwise.

“And that’s why I say there’s more to it than just these three islands!” Royhas said. “Why, they scarcely know they’re part of the kingdom as it is. When’s the last time enough taxes came out of Carcosa to pay the salary of an underclerk here in Valles?”

“They may be concerned about the future,” said Lord Tadai. “We—by which I mean Prince Garric—have given Ornifal a real government for the first time in generations. They may realize that in time, we—”

The plump, wealthy nobleman had been royal treasurer until his rivalry with Royhas meant one or the other had to go for the sake of the kingdom. He’d accepted his removal with the good grace of a patriot and a man of great intelligence, but no one would deny him a seat on the council so long as he remained in Valles.

He nodded to Garric in smiling—but real—homage.

“—will unify the whole kingdom again, and they’ll no longer be able to apply their own notions of justice and tax policy.”

“Count Lascarg never thought beyond trying to keep Carcosa quiet and spending the revenues of the estates that he took over when the previous rulers of Haft died,” Garric said with harsh assurance. “Died in riots it was his duty to put down as commander of the Household Troops. His foresight isn’t behind this secession.”

Sharina nodded, in agreement and in understanding for her brother’s bitterness. The parents who raised them, Reise and Lora, had served the former Count and Countess of Haft until the night of the fatal riots; that much she and Garric had known since childhood. Only during the disruptions of the past months had they learned the other half of the story: that Count Niard was Sharina’s father, and that Garric was the child born to Countess Tera, who traced her ancestry back to King Carus and the royal line of the Old Kingdom.

Niard had been an Ornifal noble, which explained for the first time Sharina’s blond hair and slender height. She’d always felt something of an outsider among the darker, stockier folk of Barca’s Hamlet, but she’d still been shocked to learn the truth.

“They’re getting money from outside,” said Attaper, leaning forward with his hands clasped before him on the burl walnut tabletop. “The wages of the mercenaries gathering on Tisamur run to more than the revenues of all three rulers combined. And the troops are being paid—they’re not staying on in hope of future loot.”

“The Earl of Sandrakkan’s behind it!” said Lord Waldron. “That’s the only place the money could come from. Earl Wildulf doesn’t dare face us directly, so he’s setting up this confederacy as a stalking horse to see what we’ll do!”

Waldron was an active, passionate man who was rarely comfortable sitting down. Now he rose so abruptly that his chair clattered over behind him. Normally a servant waited behind a seated noble, but Garric—though in truth Liane, Sharina suspected—had instituted a policy of greater privacy during discussions of such moment.

The noise startled everybody, even Waldron, who grimaced and tried to pick the chair up. He got the legs tangled in the robe of Lady Vartola, Priestess of the Temple of the Lady of Succor, and today representing religious interests before the council.

Sharina sprang to her feet and stepped around Vartola. Waldron was about to fling the chair into the paneled wall in fury. She took it from him. With the skill of one who’d been serving in an inn before she could read, Sharina set the chair upright again and gestured Waldron into it. The old warrior obeyed, his hard face maroon with embarrassment.

Sharina sat down also. She kept from smiling, but only with difficulty.

“I believe Lord Waldron has the right idea,” said Pterlion bor-Palial, the new treasurer, “but he’s wrong about the source. The money’s coming from Blaise, not Sandrakkan.”

He stopped, waiting with a smug smile to be asked why he was sure. The treasurer was a clever man, but rather too fond of showing how clever he was instead of just getting on with the job.

“Explain,” said Garric, his sharpness wiping the satisfaction from Pterlion’s face. “And in the future, Lord Pterlion, please recall that there are no fools at these council meetings—and no time for foolishness either.”

“That would be a good idea,” said Lord Waldron, glowering as though he’d prefer to rip the treasurer’s throat out with his teeth instead of using a sword on the fellow. “A very good idea.”

Pterlion grinned in embarrassment. “Yes, ah, Prince Garric,” he said. “Ah. There are two items of evidence. Merchants coming from Cordin and particularly Tisamur are paying their port duties in Blaise coinage, much of it fresh-minted—and, I might add, with more lead than silver in the bullion. Whereas reports from Blaise itself indicate that trade is suffering because of a lack of currency on the island. Lerdoc, Count of Blaise, is behind this secession.”

“I never thought Wildulf had the sophistication to mount a plan like this,” Tadai agreed, tenting his fingers before him. “Successfully, at any rate.”

“They haven’t succeeded,” said Garric. “They won’t succeed. And thank you, Lord Pterlion. Knowing where the trouble started will make it easier to end it.”

“I want to know about this Moon Wisdom you mentioned,” Lady Vartola said in a rasping wheeze. She was the color of old bone and so thin that Sharina wondered if she had a wasting disease. There was nothing wrong with Vartola’s mind, however, save that she focused it wholly on the betterment of her temple rather than the common good of the kingdom. “Are they usurping ownership of temple property?”

Garric glanced over his shoulder. Liane’s formal position was amanuensis to Prince Garric, so she wasn’t qualified to sit at the council table proper. Instead she waited at Garric’s right elbow, her lap desk open and her fingers ready to withdraw whichever scroll or codex might be required.

“We don’t have direct information on that as yet,” Liane said without bothering to consult the records this time. “The evidence suggests that may be the case.”